Our Adventures in Home Ownership

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Faux Christmas Morning

We had a present from Santa arrive via UPS last night! He’s really getting more efficient in his old age.

This is actually our Christmas gift from Steve’s parents, and we couldn’t have been more excited to see it sitting on our front porch last night. When they asked us what we wanted this year we said we’ve had our eye on this reel mower for quite some time; With the purchase of our new home, and our extreme practicality, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

Steve immediately took it out of the box to assemble, just like a little boy on Christmas morning. He even had his flannel PJs on.

And even though we won’t be able to test it out until spring, Steve still gave her a spin around the family room.

Since we haven’t used it yet, I can’t really tell you how wonderful it is from personal use. But we did a ton of research, and there were a lot of factors that went into wanting this type of mower:

No gasoline! Which means no stinkyness, no expense, no running to the gas station mid-mow when you realize you forgot the tank was low, and no winterizing the tank.

Because the way the blades clip the grass, it’s a clean cut — compared to a regular mower that sort of tears the grass. From everything we’ve read reel mowers are superb for the health of the grass.

No loud engine = you can mow the lawn whenever you damn please

It can still do a lot of the same things that gas mowers can do: It plows through twigs and weeds, it has a 1″–4″ height setting, and is as easy to push as any non-self-propelled gas mower.

Simpler mower = simpler life. We’re always looking for ways to simplify our life. This is just one of them.

I know these types of mowers aren’t for everyone. We have a very reasonably-sized yard (.35 Acres) that is very flat which makes having a reel mower completely practical for us.

Waiting for spring is going to be slightly torturous. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if on the next semi-warm day Steve gives the yard a once over with our newest garage tenant.

Please ignore the half-decorated Christmas tree in the background of those pictures, by the way. I only had enough motivation after the move to trim the tree with lights and light covers. Next year I’ll bust out all the trimmings… assuming I can find them by then.